


sometimes even love isn't enough (so what chance do WE have?)

by Princex_N



Series: i love you and the world is ending and i love you [2]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mercy Killing, Regret, Sad, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Alex doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't quite this.('we are all fucked, and we are all saved', told from Alex's POV)
Relationships: Alex Kralie/Brian Thomas
Series: i love you and the world is ending and i love you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672126
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	sometimes even love isn't enough (so what chance do WE have?)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from [this A Softer World](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=885) comic
> 
> the last fic wasn't supposed to have any follow up, but I couldn't stop thinking about it :(

It's a stolen moment of quiet, possibly peaceful if it weren't for the fact that Alex knows it's anything but lasting. There's no space for peace here, not anymore. He knows that he doesn't deserve anything less, and certainly nothing more. 

None of them do. 

It'd be easy to push forward, but for now Alex is content to sit and wait. He doesn't know where Tim is, unsure where Jay ended up, but that's fine. He can wait and be ready, for whenever things decide to develop. 

Alex is content enough to wait. He's waited this long, after all.

A burst of static behind his eyes interrupts his thoughts, and he spins around to look behind him. It's gone by the time he looks, its blank face nowhere in sight (is it pathetic for Alex to be grateful?), but the yellow hoodie on the floor is immediately recognizable, even if Alex can't see its owners face from this angle. 

For a moment, he thinks Brian is dead, and doesn't understand; it's never brought _him_ corpses before, after all. But he realizes that Brian is still alive, just not getting up, right before he realizes that he probably can't. Alex can see the way his body is too limp and too stiff simultaneously, something broken in the way he holds himself, screaming pain in the shaky wheeze of his labored breaths. 

Someone did this to him. It can't have been Jay, because Jay is dead (because Alex killed him, and he is _not_ thinking about how Jay hadn't even tried to fight back. How he had only called Alex's name, the camera in his hand the closest he had to a weapon - pleading and trusting and _stupid_ and Alex had shot him because there was no other choice and Alex does not regret it, he does _not_ , he can't), and it wasn't Alex (because he was busy hiding after he'd shot Jay), so that leaves Tim. 

Fucking Tim. The source of this whole fucking mess and unabashed hypocrite through and through. Always the victim of circumstance or simply pulled into disaster by other people, touting around that superior veneer of kindness while he pretended like he wasn't just as ruthlessly violent as the rest of them. 

"Fucking Tim," Alex spits aloud, staring over at Brian's broken body and shaking chest from across the room. "Can't do anything _right_." 

If the man was going to take his anger out on someone, the least he could have done was make sure he finished the job properly. 

Brian's throat works uselessly, and it takes Alex a second to realize that he's trying to speak - mouth shaping faltering syllables without actually getting any of them out. He waits, because he might as well, wondering if the difficulty comes from a head injury or something more; Alex can't remember hearing Brian speak since that day in the hospital. (Brian had been trying so hard to make him laugh, he remembers, and Alex hadn't been able to bring himself to fake it for him. He remembers the panic and worry in Brian's voice as he had called for Alex, the relief in his barely conscious face when Alex had found him again, the fear and confusion in the weak noise he'd made when he realized that Alex was leaving him. Alex remembers. Sometimes he wishes he didn't.) 

"Jumped," Brian manages finally, voice thick and slurred and rasped. Alex almost can't hear it, but he does. 

It's as absurd as it is obvious. Of course Brian would. Alex doesn't know what happened, but he can guess that Tim was still involved to some extent - he can't think of another reason Brian would have done something like this. Stupid Brian with his naive trust and willingness to help other people out. Even pissed beyond belief he couldn't bring himself to leave Tim's full name on the medical records he'd given Jay, couldn't let Tim make a decision he might have regretted even if it meant his death. 

"Of course you did," Alex says. "You always were too considerate. 

(There's something sad in the words, in the memories of Brian's eyes on the practically empty audition sheet and the way he had gently coaxed Tim into signing up too, casually dismissing the grateful look Alex had given him. Brian who offered up his house for them to meet in even on the days he couldn't be there to join them, who pitched in to buy tapes without question when Alex had asked, who stuck around when everyone else had been run off to make sure that Alex was okay. If circumstances had been different and Alex hadn't had the excuse of filming to separate everybody back then, Brian would have been the easiest one to get alone: all Alex would have had to do was ask and Brian would agree to follow him anywhere.) 

Brian struggles for words again, taking too long to find them and even longer to force them out of his mouth. Cadence faltering over wheezes and choked gasps of pain and shortened breath. 

"Didn't want to give you the satisfaction." 

It's a joke that is so quintessentially _Brian_ that Alex almost laughs. It's _'My hair always looks good; that's why I'm the star',_ it's _'That's the one thing I'm good at',_ it's a plainly typed _'You will not'_. Alex almost laughs, and Brian's mouth pulls around the agony to almost smirk, and isn't it odd how - for a moment - it's almost like the past eight years never happened at all? 

(Alex has never let himself wish, has never let himself entertain any other possibilities, not after the first was gone. There was no other option, there was nothing else he could have done, he was doing all he could, he was doing the right thing. Alex never let himself wonder what it might have been like if he hadn't. Never let himself miss what he'd broken.) 

(He was doing the right thing, he knew, but he'd always known that he was never anything more than the villain.) 

"How's that working out for you?" he asks, and doesn't feel particularly bad about mocking a man so clearly broken, so clearly dying. Alex hasn't felt things like guilt in a while - it's not that he never could, more like his brain finally turned it off before the stress of feeling it could kill him (maybe he should have let it). 

"Been better," Brian replies, and it almost could have been funny. 

Brian's head moves, tilting in his direction, and Alex can tell that it hurts him. "Please," he says plainly, and Alex wishes he didn't understand what was being asked of him so damn quickly. 

"I thought you didn't want to give me the satisfaction," he points out, because he can't help himself. Banter always was the way they had the most fun together. 

Brian doesn't quite laugh, more like he chokes, and Alex can see blood spill out of the corners of his mouth. When Alex allows himself to step closer, and Brian smiles, he can see it smeared over his teeth, see where it's dried over his face in old and older patches, where the skin has turned red with irritation from the contaminant. Alex wonders when the last time any of them were human enough for things like washing their faces just for the sake of being clean. 

"Least you have practice," Brian fires back, slow and painful. Not quite a blow meant to land, surprisingly, which Alex supposes it good, because it wouldn't have (Alex _had_ learned. It was supposed to be kind, in a way. Supposed to be mercy. Mercy isn't kind if it's slow and if it's painful, it's only good if it's quick. Jay had been a mistake - he's never had much success with the gun - but Alex learns. He'd had to).

Alex is standing over him now, looming, puts the gun in his pocket and just looks for a moment. He could use the gun if he wanted, but if Tim is still in the building then Alex doesn't want him knowing where he is quite yet, and the noise would definitely attract the attention. Alex isn't sure how things with Tim will go, but he doubts the man will go down easy (he'd been the only one that Alex had lost, back then), so Alex needs all the advantages that he can get. At this point, Brian would be almost a waste of a bullet (and anyway, Alex isn't quite sure if he likes the distance of using it for this, for them). 

Brian's eyes are glassy and distant, but Alex is certain that it's not from a lack of awareness or consciousness. Alex is positive that Brian is nothing if not completely and thoroughly Awake, even if he'd clearly rather not be. "Please," Brian asks again, eyes faltering in their quest to meet Alex's. 

Alex was already agreeing, but the plea pushes him back into motion. He steps over Brian carefully, straddling his midsection and hovering there to make sure that none of his weight winds up on Brian's body. He's not sure where the damage is - probably everywhere if he's guessing honestly - and mercy isn't kind if it's painful. It might not make a difference to Brian, what's a little more discomfort at this point, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. 

Brian looks up at him, something trusting in his eyes despite everything that they have been through, despite the wet slog of his lungs and the pained tremble of his body, despite the years of anger and hate and betrayal. Brian trusts Alex to do this, and for the first time in years, Alex feels something in him crack and open back up to the scared and guilty and desperate mess he had been the first time around. Trying to keep a handle on things and feeling so stupidly out of his depth, knowing that he was right and still unable to even the scales against the pained betrayal all of his friends had fixed him with. The guilt and grief and pain and desperation surge back into place with a vengeance. 

"I didn't want this for any of you," he says, and it's the most honest he's been in years. Alex had considered the nameless potential Others who might have also caught whatever this is when he first decided on this course of action. But more than that it was always the terror he felt, the dread and fear and pain, and knowing that his friends were already on the same doorstep to suffering, and Alex had wanted to make sure they never crossed it. It was about making sure that _It_ couldn't hurt them like it hurt Alex. Making sure that particular pain began and ended with him. 

Brian is struggling to speak again, vowels fragmenting before they ever coalesce into words, and Alex could wait, but doesn't. There's no point in making him suffer through this any longer; he's asked for help, and Alex can help him. 

(And maybe it's selfish. Maybe Alex doesn't _want_ to know if Brian understands, if Brian is trying to speak only to damn Alex with his hatred, or damn him with his forgiveness. Alex doesn't know which would be worse.) 

He puts his hands around Brian's neck, feels the strained flutter of his pulse against his fingertips and the thick wheeze of his breath under his palms. It's intimate. Alex doesn't know what he expects anymore, hesitating there for a quick moment, remembering, but Brian smiles at him anyway. Blood smeared teeth and his dumb little tooth gap and an easy brightness in his eyes hat Alex had missed fervently every time he had seen him without the hood. 

Brian smiles, and Alex thinks maybe something in himself settles. He's not sure what. It doesn't matter. 

For a moment, Alex entertains the thought of strangling him, but doesn't. They've all had enough of fighting to catch their breath over the years. Brian's spine is damaged enough, already in such a delicate sort of balance that it's hardly anything to break his neck. Maybe it's smothering either way, but at least with this there's no way that Brian could hurt himself further while his body would try to force him to struggle, even if this was what he wanted. 

Alex keeps his hands in place, feels the frantic stutter of Brian's heartbeat fade and stop beneath the pads of his fingers. Holds his hands there until he is sure - no more mistakes this time. Then he ducks his head to press his forehead against Brian's, stealing a moment of comfort he knows he doesn't deserve, tries to breathe around the knot in his throat and doesn't look at the delicate glass of Brian's still-open eyes. 

Maybe it's a goodbye. Maybe Brian hadn't been himself in years, and maybe Alex hasn't been himself for longer, but there was at least a moment that they'd had, however short, where it was _them_ again, instead of whatever It had warped them into. 

It's not enough. It never will be. Alex forces himself to pull back, pushing Brian's eyelids closed and pulling off the mask properly, combing his too-long hair out of his slack face. It's not enough. 

It never will be. 

(It was never going to be in the first place.) 

**Author's Note:**

> there's going to be a third
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
